Wal-Mart Case

You Just Missed Your Last Chance To Sue Your Boss

$11 billion. That's what the payout would have been had employees won their class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart for sex discrimination. But it turns out that those 1.5 million women didn't even stand a chance. In a seminal decision yesterday, the Supreme Court dismissed the Wal-Mart case from court, claiming that the company was just too large to have such a wide-ranging policy of sexism.

Justice Scalia's statement read: "In a company of Wal-Mart's size and geographical scope, it is quite unbelievable that all managers would exercise their discretion in a common way without some common direction."

But the decision doesn't just affect women. How many of us haven't felt undermined in some way or unfairly denied promotion in some form? How many of us haven't fantasized about suing our employers for these injustices (or simply because we hate our boss)?

Well, you can kiss that fantasy goodbye. The Wal-Mart case is being touted as the death of the class-action lawsuit, meaning that these huge, seminal cases might become a relic of history — at least with the current Supreme Court line-up in place.

So, with the labor market in shambles and your hopes of winning billions from the man now shattered, what's a working man to do?